2013 Empty Cup Awards: The Worst Performances of 2013

Looking Back at the Worst Performances of 2013 (cause we felt like it!)

 

Sometimes looking back can be fun; sometimes excruciating. In this case, both.

Looking back on 2013, it is difficult not to be reminded of all the awful movies; it is equally impossible to forget all the terrible performances. 2013 was unique, however, in its ability to ruin entire casts all at once; films sprouted across screens that didn’t just have one awful performance, but sometimes as many as three, or frankly the entire cast just stunk it up. With this is in mind, it is no question why 2013’s worst performance is also our only solo nominee:

 

Jaden Smith as Kit (After Earth)

“…Sadly, the other Smith, Jaden, is simply unwatchable for the majority of this role.  His affected voice and cadence appear as if he has devoured a bale of hay while his rigid delivery borders on mannequin.  It is only his action scenes, thankfully, that provide any respite from this blundered performance.” Read Full Review.

Jaden Smith’s performance was ghastly. The film, to observer’s great misfortune, consists almost entirely of Baby Smith, supported loosely by a comatose Will Smith (who is still, somehow leaps and bounds more interesting despite being a moaning corpse) and random deadly slash inexplicably maternal creatures.

Jaden Smith is quite literally the star of this film and so observers will be resigned to a fate worse than death early on – watching him act his way, through a deadly forest, all the while, not actually dying. Just torture.

It may have actually enhanced the movie to have an acting coach break the fourth wall and shriek at each missed/bungled line or to hire a Statler & Waldorf entourage to heckle him until he fled the scene. Spoiler alert: sometimes God is cruel.

 

Lindsey Lohan as Tara/ Nolan Gerald Funk as Ryan (The Canyons)

“…Lohan is not good in this film, sadly, although she can hardly be faulted.  Her delivery is confused, stiff, transparent but this can be blamed as much on her as on the script and direction, each of which seems bent on ruin.  Deen is a porn star and I will leave his performance at that (he should stick to not delivering lines.)

Funk is disappointing.  Like Lohan, he appears trapped in a script bent on his destruction.  He, like Lohan, has actually been good in other performances (see Glee: Hunter Clarington) and yet here he seems helpless to escape.  Or to perform…” Read Full Review.

Our first multi-performer debacle goes to Lohan and Funk, who managed to make an actual porn star look like he was holding his own, acting wise. And don’t get me wrong, he was also terrible, but again, he was a porn star, so…

Anyway, the movie is preposterous, but it is these two performances, from performers who, at one point, were actually capable of acting, that really take the wind out of slack-jawed gawker’s sails. Lohan appears both bored and lost, wandering on screen as if she is being paid to personify apathy and incompetence.

Nolan, for his part, is something of the opposite issue, choosing to deliver every line as if “over-the-top” was an aspirational endeavor. Nothing goes right for him in this film and by its end, hardly anyone is left paying attention to his actual, deliberate breaking of the fourth wall.

 

Charlie Day as Dr. Newton Geiszler/ Burn Gorman as Gottlieb (Pacific Rim)

“…Day gets louder rather than better as the film progresses and Gorman literally consumes a third of the scenery before the second act is through..” Read Full Review.

Wow. This duo is just barely better than Lohan and Funk, if only because…ok, this one is basically a tie that goes to actors that are typically better. But only by a hair. Day, is agonizing to watch, screaming and shouting EVERY SINGLE LINE, and the louder he gets, the less he appears to realize there are other actors in this movie…or that there is a “plot”…or that there is a movie at all. He is basically just drunkenly shrieking his lines as if they don’t mean anything at all. Bela Lugosi did this at the start of his career, but he didn’t speak English. What is your excuse Day?

Gorman, the other half of this slapstick nonsense isn’t loud, just preposterously Shakespearean. A caricature from horror movies delivered by Ed Wood, this harkens back to the days when caricatures were better than actors. Is he on stage somewhere? What’s with all the exaggeration? What are we watching at all??

 

Famke Janssen as Muriel / Peter Stormare as Sheriff Berringer (Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters)

“…Of course, fortunately for Stormare, like his recent performance in The Last Stand, no one could actually accuse him of acting…Janssen appears to be trying in this film, a noble attempt, but her role is so hackneyed and boring that had she not been the central villain, audiences might have forgotten she was there.” Read Full Review

Stormare, when given the right role, is quite fantastic. This was both the wrong role, as wrongly as possible. Like an athlete that plays down to his opponent’s level =, he appears trapped in scenes that are so far beneath him that he has given up and takes part in his own mocking.

Famke Janssen is ridiculous. True, her role is terrible in a terrible movie, there is no escaping the fact that there is nothing about this performance that won’t give us nightmares – trying or not.

 

Emma Thomson as Sarafine/ Jeremy Irons as Macon Ravenwood/ Viola Davis as Amma (Beautiful Creatures)

“But the same cannot be said for the veterans in this cast who seem completely lost.  Irons, who is excellent in pretty much everything, and who sells out performances of himself reading the phone book, is unbearable for every moment of the film.  Choppy and appearing confused at every moment, Irons seems distracted by his own presence in the film.

Davis fares no better, only with the added effect of appearing bored to tears by her own performance; while it seems the intention was to construct a character that is understated and struggling with deep secrets and emotions, she comes off as woefully disinterested and with all the on-screen energy of the dead she summons.  This is made more confusing by the complete departure from the character in the book once again casting doubt on LaGravense’s decision-making.

And the third casualty in the “usually awesome” veteran’s pool is reserved for Thompson who needed to be rushed to the hospital midway through the film having ingested so much scenery.  To say she presents a character that is over-the-top is to articulate universal truth like “everyone will eventually die’ and with the same, depressing result.” Read Full Review.

Like Jonah Hill the prior year, 2013’s “Tommy Award” goes to this bormally awesome trio. This award, given to good actors gone bad is named for 2011 recipient Woody Harrelson’s character “Tommy”. They are quite clearly the worst things on screen, by far, somehow, consider8ng this film was actually un-watchable. It is always sad when good actors go bad…so, so bad. But we still love you guys (just a little less).

 

And like the dreadful agony of an empty cup, so go these films and performances of 2013. Enjoy until 2014, coming soon!